The convenience of a home freezer is no longer a luxury, as a stroll down the aisle of any whiteware store will confirm. Not only are freezers affordable but they are considered a necessity for modern living. This was not always the case.

I can vividly remember the first fridge with an icebox our family bought. The fridge supplanted the meat safe attached to the cold side of the house and the icebox was a modern miracle. This dual jewel had a chrome triangular door handle set in a blue plastic circle and I swear my mother polished it every day of her life.

Fridges of the 1960s were fairly basic. Most came with a small icebox, inconveniently placed, and only big enough to take a tray of ice cubes. These iceboxes were never designed to store frozen foods as we know them today, but back then frozen foods were few and far between. The first I can remember was a cardboard box of Bird's Eye peas, which, to my seasonal palette, tasted very strange indeed.

You could say that home freezers have grown in tandem to accommodate the huge range of frozen foods that we now take for granted, icecream being just one.

I have always made icecream the same way - with my trusty Kenwood beater and just two ingredients, cream and condensed milk. The product is excellent and never grainy. The flavour can be varied according to taste with fruit, chocolate or liqueur, but I just add vanilla essence.

VANILLA ICECREAM (makes about 1 1/2 litres)

2 cups cream

1 tin standard condensed milk

1 tsp vanilla essence

1. Pour cream, condensed milk and vanilla into a beating bowl.

2. Beat for about 4 minutes, or until mixture resembles whipped cream.